Increasing terrorism in the U.S.: a bomb was found before a Martin Luther King Day march.

The FBI is seeking information connected to the identity of the person or persons seen with this Swiss Army-brand backpack. (Photo Courtesy FBI)

Security in U.S. homeland is an increasing problem. A backpack containing a “potentially deadly” explosive device was found along the intended route of a Martin Luther King Day march in Spokane, Wash., about an hour before the event was to begin, the FBI said Tuesday, describing the case as “domestic terrorism.”

According to media reports the bomb was equipped with a remote control detonator and contained shrapnel , an anti-personnel artillery munition .

A bomb disposal unit was called in and neutralized the device with a robot. The FBI has refused to discuss how the bomb was constructed.

The suspicious backpack was spotted by three city employees at an intersection in downtown Spokane about an hour before the parade was to start Monday. They saw wires and immediately alerted law enforcement, who disabled it without incident.

The discovery before the parade for the slain civil rights leader raised the possibility of a racial motive in a region that has been home to the white supremacist Aryan Nations.

The Spokane region and adjacent northern Idaho have had numerous incidents of anti-government and white supremacist activity in the past three decades.

The most visible was by the Aryan Nations, whose leader, Richard Butler, gathered racists and anti-Semites at his compound for two decades. Butler was bankrupted and lost the compound in a civil lawsuit in 2000 and died in 2004.